RZA Signs Up For Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’

Published 3 years ago
by
Sandy Schaefer
, Updated February 15th, 2014 at 4:30 pm,

Yet another fellow who previously worked with Quentin Tarantino has joined the filmmaker’s latest project, Django Unchained – namely, musician-turned-actor RZA, who served as the composer for Kill Bill: Vol. 1.

The Wu-Tang Clan founder will play a supporting role in Tarantino’s Old U.S. South-set revenge flick, alongside other recent additions to the cast like Anthony LaPaglia (Frasier, Without a Trace) and Misty Upham (Frozen River).

RZA will next grace the big screen by making a brief appearance in this week’s A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas. However, he’ll also be showing up in several prominent titles slated for release in 2012, including Django Unchained, the sequel G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and his own directorial debut, The Man with the Iron Fists.

Variety says that RZA is up to appear in Django Unchained as Thaddeus, a “violent” slave who works on a Mississippi plantation. The character will presumably either encounter the titular slave-turned-bounty-hunter (Jamie Foxx) or his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) at some point in the film.

LaPaglia will costar in Django Unchained as the head of a gang of greedy Australians who have a run-in with Django and (presumably) his German comrade, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). It also seems that Joseph Gordon-Levitt has indeed worked out his upcoming acting schedule and will be available to play LaPaglia’s cruel brother in the film.

Upham’s character will be that of Minnie, a “trading post-bar owner.” She will help round up the Django Unchained supporting cast, which also includes familiar faces from the Tarantino movie universe like Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, and Laura Cayouette (“Rocket” from Kill Bill: Vol. 2) alongside veteran TV show stars such as Don Johnson, M.C. Gainey, and Gerald McRaney.

To refresh your memory: Here is a description of the plot and tone of Django Unchained from an insider who got an early look at Tarantino’s screenplay for the film:

“Django is a freed slave, who, under the tutelage of a German bounty hunter [Waltz] becomes a bad-ass bounty hunter himself, and after assisting Waltz in taking down some bad guys for profit, is helped by Waltz in tracking down his slave wife and liberating her from an evil plantation owner [Leonardo DiCaprio]. And that doesn’t even half begin to cover it! This film deals with racism as I’ve rarely seen it handled in a Hollywood film. While it’s 100 percent pure popcorn and revenge flick, it is pure genius in the way it takes on the evil slave owning south. Think of what [Tarantino] did with the Nazis in [Inglourious Basterds] and you’ll get a sense of what he’s doing with slave owners and slave overseers in this one.”

Between the stellar cast, controversial content, and Tarantino’s trademark pastiche-style approach to the art of cinema, Django Unchained definitely sounds promising. If nothing else, the movie looks to more than please the filmmaker’s die-hard fans.

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Django Unchained will be set loose in theaters around the U.S. on December 25th, 2012.